The Initial Teacher Training Market Review was released at the end of the most tumultuous of academic years. In spite of a claim to offer the promise of 'world- class training', the proposals, if enacted, have the potential to force out many with genuine expertise in teacher education. Written during the seven-week review consultation period, this…

This article considers the changed fortunes of teachers in 2023. It asks, 'how did we arrive at a culture of efficiency, effectiveness and delivery accountability -- a culture which scares away our teachers?'. The thinking and language of Heidegger shows the power of language in asserting dominance and changing cultures. The architect of…

This conversation grows out of the book by Terry Edwards and Carl Parsons -- "How to Dismantle the English State Education System in 10 Easy Steps" (Zero Books 2019). The book was written as a satire, ostensibly lauding the achievements of academisation whilst revealing the commercialised, scandal-ridden, chaotic and ineffective nature…

In earlier issues of FORUM, Nigel Gann has written on the impact of academisation on state-funded schools and the growing democratic deficit in educational leadership. In 2018, Andrew Allen and Nigel Gann wrote on the dismantling of the English education service and offered some suggestions for a new representative model. This article explores…

The lesson to be learnt from a quarter of a century of resisting standardised testing is that educational and pedagogical issues must drive campaigning. Teachers must work together to re-establish confidence in their own ability to control the curriculum and what is offered to our children. This can only be a collective enterprise and teachers…

Calls to establish public education avoid the fact that public education is provided by the capitalist state whose real purpose is the market-based model of private gain. Public against private education is a false dichotomy; rather, public and private are complementary forms of capitalist regulation. Radical alternatives require a more…

English school policy since 1988 has increasingly been defined in neoliberal terms, with an emphasis on markets, competition, and education in its narrowest sense (ENS). However, for a brief interlude from 2005 to 2010, school leaders were challenged by a new Extended Schools (ES) policy to look outside their classrooms and beyond their school…

This article explores the evolution of higher education in the context of a growing - if largely silent - consensus at governmental level to the effect that the State can no longer afford to fund higher education. Higher education institutions are, therefore, expected to explore new funding avenues as costs are increasingly shifted onto the…

The entrenching of competitive values within the public-market field of secondary education has led to the formation of academically focused institutions whose budgets and reputations are based on gaining large numbers of students who have the best chance of attaining highly in public examinations. Although parents have become savvier about their…

Contemporary Conservative education policy may seem to be hastily formulated and executed, but, it is arguably founded on deeply held ideological beliefs. By briefly examining the history of the British Conservative party and its complex formation and disparate ideological traditions, including the broader conservative diaspora, four key…

In this article the author argues that an incoming government should establish a new values base for educational policy focused on the well-being and educational entitlement of all children rather than the education market. A new government must prioritise learning and teaching: rather than pursuing an ideological agenda and attempting to control…

In September 2015, the Secretary of State for Education asked for more business involvement in schools, and in particular for business leaders' help to improve failing schools. This article questions the twenty-year campaign by all governments to engage business expertise and values in the governance of schools.

For over a quarter of a century there has been a creeping marketization of the English education system. No part of the system remains unscathed. In this article the consequences of marketization are set out clearly and alternative models of the future are presented. The author calls for another "Great Debate"--but one that mobilises…

Tertiary-level educational provision is being increasingly fragmented by government policies, with malign consequences for students and institutions. As currently constituted, higher education works to entrench inequalities and devalue qualifications, while bipartisanship around the future of further education risks reprising past failures. What…

This article briefly overviews the likely future of education as planned after the 2015 Conservative election success. Although education was not a major item in election manifestos or in subsequent discussion, the Department for Education claims that it is rolling out one of the most ambitious education reform movements in the world. How the…